marina_bonomi | Jan. 8th, 2007

I've always been an avid reader. Oh, well, ok, not quite 'always', from age three, when I actually learned to read.

Books have been and are many things to me: close friends to be kept near, worlds to get lost into,works of wonderful art to be savored a bit at a time, portals to other dimensions (even literally, this one, I taught myself English reading books).

The spotlight on LJ features the 50bookchallenge community, seeing it has prodded me to keep count this year (last time I did, five or six years ago I finished the year at 86, it was really funny to see the faces of the 'book club'folks on the street when their 'how many books you read on average?' was answered). :)

So I got a meter (hope it works) and started counting: at the moment just "Shiba Inus"by Laura Payton (a neat little handbook on a fascinating dog breed, imo), but I think I'll finish 'The Return of the Shadow' today, more on that one later.

1 / 100
(1.0%)

93 / 30,000
(0.3%)

Two meters, actually: book count and page count. Not that I'm planning to read 100 books this year, I thought to give myself some 'space' though.
Good reading to you!

Aka The History of the Lord of the Rings - Part 1 or The History of Middle-Earth volume 6.

I'm a Tolkien fanatic, can't you tell? Although if he heard me, the good professor would likely slap me with a copy of The Hobbit (if I was lucky). He was strongly surprised by the kind of enthusiasm his 'brainchild' raised.
For myself, being crazy about languages *and* ancient myths *and* history I coudn't but fall in love with Middle-Earth, and I always itch (and sometimes ache) for more of it.
'The History of Middle-Earth' (all 12 volumes of it)is just for people like me, those who whant to know how Quenya came about, or that can stare at a sentence in Sindarin for minutes just savoring the sound of it or who like to ponder the affinities between early history of the people who will become the Rohirrim and the real-world history of the Langobardic settlement of Italy.
This labour of love of professor Christopher Tolkien isn't definitely for those who consider the Lord of the Rings 'just' a novel, but is a definite must for anyone seriously interested in Tolkien studies.